Monday, November 24, 2008

Pied Butcherbird

This is a common bird in my backyard. My bird book calls it an "outstanding songster". However, it is because of its habits in catching and killing prey that it gets its name. It will eat insects, lizards, small rodents, and small birds. When the prey is too large to manage it will wedge it in a tree fork or on a thorn and then stand back and tear it apart with its hooked beak.Thanks Denis for a link to the call of this bird. The link is in mp3 format.

12 comments:

Thanks for showing us your Pied Butcherbird. I have never seen one before. They look very intereting. The behavior you describe reminds me of a shrike, which also stabs its prey at times in thorny brush.

Hi MickBernie's comment is right. Early British ornithologists noted this similarity in behaviour, when they first discovered Butcherbirds in Oz.As you have a nice image of the bird calling, did you realise that the Birds in Backyards site has sound files attached to many bird "profiles". So you could provide a link to a page where its call is "playable".http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/finder/display.cfm?id=23Only problem is the filing system on the "bird finder" works on first name basis - so Pied Buthcherbird is found under P. Grey Butcherbird is found under G. Crazy system. But it is a useful resource, none-the-less.CheersDenis

Thanks for your comment Sparverious. I still photograph the 'common' ones so I thought why not post them!

Hi Denis, very interesting facts about the early ornithologists and thanks for the link for the call. I went looking for calls I could link to but missed that one. (The others I did not like - did not recognize the sequence of notes although the tonal quality was right!) I'll edit this post and put in the link. Thank you!